LATIN AMERICA
Panamanian dictatorship toughens regime and attacks union leaders
Simultaneous operation by the National Police on October 27 results in 18 raids and four arrests of Suntrac leaders
The Unified National Union of Construction and Similar Industry Workers (Suntracs) reported that on October 27, the National Police carried out at least 18 simultaneous raids in different regions of Panama. The operation, organized by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and carried out with the backing of the Executive, targeted union leaders and their families, resulting in the arrest of four members of the union’s National Directorate.
Among those arrested is Abdiel Betancourt, a member of the Suntracs board of directors. The union also reported that family members of leaders were also affected by the operation. The daughter and wife of Jaime Caballero, who is currently in La Joya prison, were targeted, as was the daughter of Saúl Méndez, the former general secretary of Suntracs, who remains in exile after receiving threats.
The unions say that the measures are part of an ongoing political offensive. According to Suntracs, Frenadeso and the Federico Britton National Communal Movement, it is a series of police, judicial and propaganda actions aimed at weakening the actions of the workers’ movement, which has been taking part in demonstrations against the reform of the pension system and against the security agreement signed with the United States.
Suntracs attributed direct responsibility for the aggression to President José Raúl Mulino, Security Minister Frank Ábrego, Attorney General Javier Caraballo and the Attorney General’s Office, classifying the actions as systematic violations of democratic rights. The organizations also requested that international human rights bodies follow the case and express their views on the worsening repressive measures in the country.
The organizations demand the immediate release of the detainees, the end of the police operations and guarantees that no further actions will be carried out. Read the full Suntracs statement on the case:
PUBLIC STATEMENTWe denounce to the whole country that heavily armed and masked units of the National Police, accompanied by officials from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, raided the homes of several members of our union’s Board of Directors and family members of some comrades today, Monday, October 27.
The result of this new wave of repression was 17 searches, 4 arrests – leaders Abdiel Bethancourt and José Palacio, Kathia Caballero and María Isabel Cordero, the daughter and wife, respectively, of comrade Jaime Caballero.
The inept prosecutor Emeldo Márquez, following orders from the Presidency, carried out these searches and arrests in order to justify prolonging a process that he has already lost, as has happened in other cases in which they have acted in a similar way.
In a cowardly way, these actions are taken as revenge for the fact that SUNTRACS continues to fight without bending, as a reaction to the strong statements made by comrade Saúl Méndez from the place where the struggle continues and as a response to the fact that his image as leader is increasingly sinking into the swamp of national contempt and rejection.
Mulino is doing to the SUNTRACS leaders what they did to him during the short time he was imprisoned in the DIJ and El Renacer prison, when he was pleading for his release over the Finmeccanica embezzlement case. And it’s even worse, because, as a form of blackmail and because of the misogyny that characterizes his government, he has directed the attack against family members of his comrades – as in the case of Jaime Caballero’s daughter and wife and Saúl Méndez’s daughter, whose house was also searched.
But these actions are also intended to divert attention from the well-known corruption cases that taint his government due to his personal relationship with businessmen involved in the million-dollar tender for police equipment, the number of conflicts of interest involving senior officials in his government, the million-dollar tender for MEDUCA laptops and now the case of Costa Rican lawyer Randall Chuken Vargas, investigated for corruption and links to drug trafficking in his country together with President Rodrigo Chaves. Chuken Vargas was a frequent visitor to Las Garzas Palace, and Chaves was recently decorated by Mulino. It seems that they were both on the visit that Mulino made on a mysterious trip days before the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in his favor, allowing him to run for the presidency.
It is clear that Mulino’s systematic attack on SUNTRACS and the Panamanian popular and social movement as a whole seeks to put an end to any kind of resistance to open-pit mining, the dams on the Indio River, the further surrender of sovereignty and other perverse measures in the pipeline. What they want to prevent is SUNTRACS from negotiating a new Collective Agreement that will continue to improve workers’ wages and working conditions.
The paradox – although we shouldn’t be surprised when it comes to this government – is that all this is happening while corrupt white-collar thieves, many of whom worked with Mulino in the 2009-2014 government, are being released and found innocent in the biggest corruption and theft cases in our history.
Faced with this situation, comparable only to dictatorial and repressive regimes, we call on the comrades of SUNTRACS, the working class and the Panamanian people for unity and solidarity to confront these attacks on popular demands and causes until justice finally prevails in our country.
Without struggles there are no victories!
We fight by fighting!
Panama, October 27, 2025
SUNTRACS
Unified National Union of Construction and Similar Industry Workers
